Our treasure in clay

Harry Scherer
Class of 2022

(2/2020) "Nothing ever happens in the world that does not happen first inside human hearts," said Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. The prominent prelate proclaimed these truthful words on one of his Life is Worth Living telecasts entitled "War as a Judgment of God". Providing clarity, comfort and an assurance that what is being spoken is evidently true, Bishop Sheen used the television media and his unquestionable gift of properly using the English language to spread the Gospel in a manner that was both pedagogically prudent and intellectually stimulating.

To even the unobservant reader of this column, my admiration of Bishop Sheen should be apparent. Whether his writings, sermons and speeches have made me a "kinder and better person" is not necessarily for me to judge. If I am a "kinder and better person" than I was a few years ago, then it is due in some part to this faithful shepherd.

This shining star for the Catholic Church in America, and for those around the world who were quick enough to recognize his brilliance, was born in 1895 in El Paso, Illinois, about a half-hour drive from Peoria, IL where he spent most of his years of adolescence. Sheen was ordained by his Bishop Dunne in 1919 and consecrated bishop by Cardinal Piazza in 1951 on the Memorial of St. Barnabas the Apostle. The feast of Barnabas, a martyr by stoning in the early Church, was an appropriate day for the consecration of the patient bishop as a sign of the white martyrdom that he would endure in the later years of his episcopate.

He started off his career as "the first televangelist" in radio as the host of The Catholic Hour. He then moved on to television as the host of Life is Worth Living and beat out the ratings of Milton Berle and climbed to the top of the charts. A people craving for truth in charity, families welcomed the humble bishop into their living rooms after their Sunday dinners and silently wondered at both the truths that were being professed and the soul-deep conviction with which the vessel proclaimed them. Sheen himself described the metaphor of his identity as a Treasure in Clay, the title of his autobiography, as a suitable way to describe his individual vocation and that of the priest in general. A humble and meek man to the core, he reminded us of the fact that Christ uses imperfect vessels to spread His perfect Word, as is evident in His divine condescension at His Nativity in a cold manger.

This love for the Alpha and the Omega who became man for our sake was made clear in the breadth and depth of his intellectual contribution to the Church and the world. His weekly telecast would breach topics ranging from "Science, Relativity and the Atomic Bomb" to "The Psychology of the Irish" to "Pain and Suffering." Bishop Sheen never shied away from controversy but embraced controversial topics because he sensed that it was these issues that the devil employs for the spread of hateful and fearful ideology, made evident in his outward revulsion toward the Communist political scheme. The single continuity in the bishop’s thoughts from the inner tendencies of the human spirit to the configuration of vast international systems was what made his writings so tantalizing. He would connect the unconnectable and use his knowledge of human and salvation history to draw parallels between phenomena which no thinker of his time could attempt. There is a certain comfort in reading and listening to a man who was so well-formed in the classical tradition and talked to parents and children and university students like he was their peer.

In addition to his prolific writings and telecasts, Sheen was also fearless with regard to proudly defending the Church’s understanding of the political and social life of her members. He made the encyclicals of Leo XIII and Pius XI on the Church’s teaching on fair labor practices and the proper relationship between employers and employees accessible to the common man. In that way, he tore the veil that can sometimes create a disconnect between the intellectual and ministerial life of the episcopate and presbyterate and the life of everyday virtue of the laity. Bishop Sheen was a priest through and through. It seems to me that the reason that he was able to live out this vocation that put an indelible mark on his soul and ontologically changed him was because he understood and lived the universal call to holiness that applies to everyone in the Church.

Bishop Sheen looked at those he loved, everyone, through the lens of Christ gazing at his Mother, His beloved apostle and the penitent Magdalene at the foot of the Cross. The holy bishop loved his flock with the heart of Christ and suffered for them in imitation of the sufferings which Christ bore for the Church. As a contrast to the accidental fame that he acquired by means of properly using his talents, he was the subject of ecclesial envy, even from superiors. He bore the humiliation of being reassigned to what was described as "ecclesiastical Siberia" in the Diocese of Rochester. Families followed him to learn more from his down-to-earth wisdom about the nature of spiritual, political and social matters. What distinguished Bishop Sheen from some of his peers in the episcopal order was his filial piety to his one true love, the Church, and a seemingly embedded knowledge that all that happened to him on this earth was the will of God, either active or permissive.

Bishop Sheen was a model for all Christians and all persons of good will to live out their human and individual natures for the greater glory of God. An indomitable force of prayer and love, he taught us how to be human and how to be like Christ. May he rest in peace, may his cause for canonization be swift and may even more come to know the love of Our Lord through the clay of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.

In his own words, "bye and God love you!"

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